Netflix Knows The Exact Moment You Get Hooked On A TV Show

“I know, it starts out slow, but if you can just get through a few episodes, I swear, it’s totally worth it and you will be addicted. Just trust me.” We’ve all heard something like that before, and now Netflix is repeating it, with a list that pinpoints the exact episode its users get hooked on a TV show.

Looking at 25 shows it offers (some original, others not) Netflix identified the episode in each where, after viewing, 70% of people kept watching for the rest of the season, if not more. Interestingly enough, Netflix found that a TV pilot might be the reason you get interested in a show, but it’s usually not the one that gets you hooked.

This all works out nicely for Netflix and its model of dumping an entire season of an original TV show on the platform at once, to enable viewers to binge watch their hearts out, of course, and not so much for shows that air on regular TV once a week.

“Given the precious nature of primetime slots on traditional TV, a series pilot is arguably the most important point in the life of the show,” said Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer for Netflix in a press release. “However, in our research of more than 20 shows across 16 markets, we found that no one was ever hooked on the pilot. This gives us confidence that giving our members all episodes at once is more aligned with how fans are made.”

That being said, this study doesn’t look at how folks consume traditional TV — one episode at a time — just those who stream it through Netflix and therefore have the ability to keep going and going and going.

The “hooked” episodes are global averages, identified using data from viewing habits on Netflix across 16 markets, including the U.S., U.K. and Australia, even if all shows weren’t available in all areas.

As one might imagine, there are some cultural differences in viewing habits.

“The Dutch, for instance, tend to fall in love with series the fastest, getting hooked one episode ahead of most countries irrespective of the show,” Netflix says, while folks in Australia and New Zealand were a bit slower, getting hooked “one to two episodes later than the rest of the world on almost every show.”